the french have perfectly nice pasteries but if i have to eat a dessert i'd pick egyptian and greek well ahead of the french,

Wait, what. No. Stop. The whole thing is phyllo and that's pretty much it. Sometimes layered with so much honey you can't lift it sometimes stuffed with cheese. I mean ok but come on. There is nothing to touch a kouign amaan (sp?). Real deal mille-feuille? Canele?

Shawarma is wonderful, as is gyro meat. (Food at Al Udeid was generally tolerable at best. But every so often, there was gyro meat on the self-serve line. Inexplicably, it was pretty damn good, not just by chow hall standards, but in general. I used to plow through terrifying amounts of that stuff.)
Tzatziki is probably the most underrated condiment, and the only white condiment I'll allow in my home. It's also pretty easy to make at home.

ETA: We should also take moment to discuss the glory of stuffed grape leaves.

" i discovered you eat dog dicks out of a bowl marked "dog dicks" because you're too stupid to remember where you left your bowl of dog dicks."-dhex, of course.
"Come, let us go forth and not rape together"-Jadagul

When done wrong, they're meh at best. (Wrong is flavorless white rice wrapped in a overly vinegared leaf.) Done right they're slightly less addictive than methcrack.

" i discovered you eat dog dicks out of a bowl marked "dog dicks" because you're too stupid to remember where you left your bowl of dog dicks."-dhex, of course.
"Come, let us go forth and not rape together"-Jadagul

I would like to try them done right to see if I'd like them! I've had them twice and they were horrifying -- slimy texture with a taste like chewing on grass.

Yeah-those are definitely the bad ones. For true, lovecraftian horror, try some from a can. Even Cthulu stirs in R'lyeh and thinks 'what the bloody fuck is that nastiness?' when someone eats canned dolmas.

" i discovered you eat dog dicks out of a bowl marked "dog dicks" because you're too stupid to remember where you left your bowl of dog dicks."-dhex, of course.
"Come, let us go forth and not rape together"-Jadagul

I would like to try them done right to see if I'd like them! I've had them twice and they were horrifying -- slimy texture with a taste like chewing on grass.

Yeah-those are definitely the bad ones. For true, lovecraftian horror, try some from a can. Even Cthulu stirs in R'lyeh and thinks 'what the bloody fuck is that nastiness?' when someone eats canned dolmas.

Also, you need grape leaves with thin soft stems. You don't want to get the horrifying giant thick stem.

his voice is so soothing, but why do conspiracy nuts always sound like Batman and Robin solving one of Riddler's puzzles out loud? - fod

Today, at the Indian supermarket where Jeff and I regularly shop, there was a guy making and selling fresh-squeezed "sugarcane juice": he'd put four or five rather thick sticks of what is presumably sugarcane into a machine, and they came out the other side thoroughly flattened, while juice poured out of a sluice on the side. Jeff was intrigued, so I went over and bought one while he still waited in line to pay for our real food. Very surprising taste: I was expecting something watery and faintly sweet, but this stuff was surprisingly rich and thick, more like something to be marketed as "sugarcane milk." I had about one drinking-straw's worth and decided that was enough; Jeff seemed to actually like it, though he only took a couple sips more before deciding to take the rest home and let it chill in the fridge. Maybe it'll taste better cold, I dunno.

"Myself, despite what they say about libertarians, I think we're actually allowed to pursue options beyond futility or sucking the dicks of the powerful." -- Eric the .5b